Don't despair, you lovelorn. If Shirley can get lucky, surely you can, too?

Shirley, Zoo Atlanta's female warthog, is pregnant. Zoo officials are pretty sure that warthog Vern, her sole companion, is the dad. Shirley should deliver sometime next month.

Johnny Crawford/AJC (ENLARGE)

Shirley, a female warthog at Zoo Atlanta, is pregnant.

• Cute or ugly? Rank these critters • Mole rats invade zoo LIVING Latest Headlines: [an error occurred while processing this directive] • More Living Stories • Living photo galleries • Georgia Aquarium news and photos • Zoo Atlanta news and photos

"I think they'll be a great addition to the collection" at the zoo, said Maria Crane, the zoo's vice president of veterinary sciences.

Great lookers, too? Shirley has beady, runny eyes. Flies seem to like her. Vern has a nose so long that you expect him to fall on his face. Neither parent is a contender for a screen contract.

No matter, said Crane. "They're smaller versions of their parents," she said. "They'll be cute."

An ultrasound earlier this week indicated there is more than one little warthog, or piglet, inside Shirley. A staff veterinarian would have tried longer to get better images with the ultrasound, said Crane, "but she [Shirley] wasn't real comfortable with it."

She clearly feels otherwise about Vern, who moved in with the female Phacochoerus aethiopicus in June at a compound close to the elephants. At first, they did the usual warthog things to get acquainted. Vern would sidle up to her and make nice; she'd bang him with her snout.

But Vern persevered, and it paid off in late summer when things started warming up in the compound. Vern would follow Shirley around, and she didn't squeal at him to stop. He'd lay his big head atop her bristly back. If a warthog could smile, Shirley did.

Fall, winter: Things were quiet at the compound — during the day, anyway. But at night? "We had to assume it happened," said Crane.

You don't need to know what "it" was, do you, dear reader?

If so, ask Vern, that sly dog — er, warthog.